Criticism of the BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation began in 1922, when its first General Manager was John Reith (knighted 1926, created 1st Baron Reith 1940), who stated that impartiality and objectivity were the essence of professionalism.

Criticism of the corporation's perceived lack of impartiality and objectivity have since been made by many observers. Due to the corporation's self-professed high standards of programming, and the its self-proclaimed aim to be impartial and unbiased in its reporting, whenever the corporation is perceived to be falling short of these high expectations, or their reporting is viewed as more sympathetic with one side of an argument, criticism may be levelled at the BBC.

Another key area of criticism is the mandatory licence fee, as competitors argue that this means of financing is unfair and results in an inability to compete with the corporation. Also, any accusations of waste or over-staffing causes significant pressure from viewers, who are paying for this coverage. In addition, there is uncertainty to what extent the BBC is allowed to compete with other organisations and to what extent they can have a commercial presence in world markets.

Early controversies

1922 General Strike

In the year that the BBC was set up, the British establishment was under siege. The unions had called a General Strike and the Conservative Government feared the outbreak of revolution, as had happened in Russia so very recently. Labour Party politicians such as Ramsay MacDonald and Philip Snowden criticised the BBC for being pro-Government and anti-Unions; however, throughout the strike, Reith insisted that the news bulletins report all sides of the dispute without comment.

Reith's attempts to broadcast statements by the Labour Party and TUC leaders were blocked by the Government; in partial response, he personally vetoed a statement that Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury, wished to make, in the belief that allowing such a statement would give Winston Churchill both motive and opportunity to take over the BBC- something for which Churchill had continually advocated since the beginning of the Strike. Despite admitting to his staff that he would have preferred to allow the Labour and TUC leaders to broadcast directly, Reith's stance was vindicated by a post-Strike analysis carried out by the BBC's Programme Correspondence Department: of those polled, 3,696 commended the BBC's coverage, whilst 176 were critical.

Between the wars

Since 1927, arguments over actual impartiality at the BBC have been ongoing. Prior to World War II, Sir John Reith, in breach of his public duties and obligations, excluded Winston Churchill from the BBC airwaves. In 1927, under a Royal Charter, the BBC became a public entity for the first time – with requirements including the need for impartiality and for staff not to be expressing opinions on controversial subject matters.

Later allegations of bias

BBC News forms a major department of the Corporation, and regularly receives complaints of bias. Some people have criticised the BBC for being part of the establishment. The Centre for Policy Studies- a right-wing think tank – has stated that, "Since at least the mid-1980s, the Corporation has often been criticised for a perceived bias against those on the centre-right of politics." Similar allegations have been made by past and present employees such as Antony Jay, North American editor Justin Webb, former editor of the Today Programme Rod Liddle, former correspondent Robin Aitken and Peter Sissons, a veteran news anchor.

Former political editor Andrew Marr argues that the liberal bias of the BBC is the product of the types of people the Corporation employs, and is thus cultural not political. In 2011 Mark Thompson, the current BBC Director General, wrote, "In the BBC I joined 30 years ago there was, in much of current affairs, in terms of people's personal politics, which were quite vocal, a massive bias to the left." In 2011, Peter Oborne wrote, "Rather than representing the nation as a whole, it [the BBC] has become a vital resource – and sometimes attack weapon – for a narrow, arrogant Left-Liberal elite".

Accusations of a left-wing bias were often made against the Corporation by members of Margaret Thatcher's 1980s Conservative government. Norman Tebbit called the BBC the "Stateless Person's Broadcasting Corporation" because of what he regarded as its unpatriotic and neutral coverage of the Falklands War, and Conservative MP Peter Bruinvels called it the "Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation". Steve Barnett noted in The Observer that "back in 1980, George Howard, the hunting, shooting and fishing aristocratic pal of Home Secretary Willie Whitelaw, was appointed [BBC chairman] because Margaret Thatcher couldn't abide the thought of distinguished Liberal Mark Bonham-Carter being promoted from vice-chairman. "Then there was Stuart Young, accountant and brother of one of Thatcher's staunchest cabinet allies, who succeeded Howard in 1983. He was followed in 1986 by Marmaduke Hussey, brother-in-law of another Cabinet Minister who was plucked from the obscurity of a directorship at Rupert Murdoch's Times Newspapers. According to Norman Tebbit, then Tory party chairman, Hussey was appointed 'to get in there and sort the place out, and in days not months.'"

Controversies continued with the likes of the Nationwide general election special with Thatcher in 1983, a Panorama documentary called Maggie's Militant Tendency, the Real Lives interview with Martin McGuinness, the BBC's coverage of the United States' 1986 Bombing of Libya and the Zircon affair. In 1987 Director-General of the BBC Alasdair Milne was forced to resign. Thatcher later said: "I have fought three elections against the BBC and don't want to fight another against it." In 2006 Tebbit said: "The BBC was always against Lady Thatcher."

Speaking to journalists at a Broadcasting Press Guild lunch in 2009, Jeremy Hunt, the Shadow Cabinet Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, claimed that BBC News needed more Conservatives: "I wish they would go and actively look for some Conservatives to be part of their news-gathering team, because they have acknowledged that one of their problems is that people who want to work at the Corporation tend to be from the centre-left. That's why they have this issue with what Andrew Marr called an innate liberal bias."

In contrast, writer and journalist John Pilger has frequently accused the BBC of a right-wing bias. Former Director General of the BBC, Greg Dyke, has criticised the BBC as part of a "Westminster conspiracy" to maintain the British political system. Respect MP George Galloway has referred to it as the "Bush and Blair Corporation".

Political correctness

On Friday 22 September 2006 the BBC's Board of Governors held an impartiality seminar which was streamed live on the internet. The previous day the then Chairman of the Governors, Michael Grade, explained the thinking behind the seminar in an article in The Guardian newspaper. He also announced in the same article a live stream of the seminar would be available on the BBC Governors' website. The stream was only available live and was not publicised on the main BBC or BBC News websites, causing some media reports, including in The Mail on Sunday, to mistakenly claim that it was "secret". The full transcript of the seminar was released in June 2007.

In the seminar there was a hypothetical discussion including senior BBC executives about what they would allow controversial Jewish comedian Sacha Baron Cohen to throw into a dustbin on the satirical television show Room 101. It was imagined that Baron Cohen would wish to throw into Room 101 kosher food, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Qur'an, and the Bible. Most at the summit agreed that all would be permissible – except for the Qu'ran. There was also a hypothetical discussion about whether a Muslim BBC newsreader should be allowed to wear a headscarf.

In the seminar former BBC business editor Jeff Randall claimed he was told by a senior news executive in the organisation that "The BBC is not neutral in multiculturalism: it believes in it and it promotes it." The Daily Mail claimed in 2006 that Andrew Marr stated, "The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It's a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias".

These comments were reported in the UK national press a couple of weeks later. At the seminar Helen Boaden (Director of BBC News) said that the BBC must be impartial on the issue of multiculturalism. Boaden responded to press criticism of the seminar in a post on the BBC's Editors' Blog. Mark Thompson responded to press criticism in an article in the Daily Mail, as did Mark Byford in an interview in The Sunday Telegraph.

Racism

The BBC has also been accused of racism. In a speech to the Royal Television Society in 2008, Lenny Henry said that ethnic minorities were "pitifully underserved" in television comedy and that little had changed at senior levels in terms of ethnic representation during his 32 years in television. Jimmy McGovern in a 2007 interview called the BBC "one of the most racist institutions in England".

In 2001, BBC director-general Greg Dyke admitted BBC being "hideously white", and acknowledged difficulties with "race relations". He acknowledged that they were having difficulties in retaining minority staff, and outlined plans towards solving these problems.

Others argue that the BBC is biased against the white population in its output, for example being reluctant to report racist murders perpetrated by ethnic minorities such as the murder of Ross Parker, and the murder of Kriss Donald. The BBC later acknowledged it was "a mistake not to report the case of Ross Parker more extensively" noting it was worthy of coverage" "by any standards". Similarly, the organisation agreed it "got it wrong" in relation to its coverage of the Donald case.

The BBC is striving for 12.5% of its staff to be from a black and minority ethnic background (12% at 31 January 2009). This is over 4% higher than the current percentage of ethnic minorities in the UK as a whole, though the BBC is largely based in urban areas with a more diverse demographic. However, it has been argued that much of its ethnic minority staff are cleaners and security guards and not presenters and programme makers.

"Safeguarding Impartiality in the 21st Century"

A report commissioned by the BBC Trust, Safeguarding Impartiality in the 21st century, published in June 2007, stressed that the BBC needed to take more care in being impartial. It said the BBC broke its own guidelines by screening an episode of The Vicar of Dibley that promoted the Make Poverty History campaign. The bias was explained as the result of the BBC's liberal culture. A transcript of the impartiality seminar is included as a separately published appendix to the report available via the BBC Trust.

After press reports emerged that BBC employees had edited the Wikipedia article's coverage of the report, the BBC issued new guidelines banning BBC staff from "sanitising" Wikipedia articles about the BBC.

Specific allegations

Israeli–Palestinian conflict

Criticism of the BBC's Middle East coverage from supporters of both Israel and Palestine led the BBC to commission an investigation and report from a senior broadcast journalist Malcolm Balen, referred to as the Balen Report and completed in 2004. The BBC's refusal to release the report under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 resulted in a long-running and ongoing legal case. This led to speculation that the report was damning, as well as to accusations of hypocrisy, as the BBC frequently made use itself of Freedom of Information Act requests when researching news stories.

After the Balen report, the BBC appointed a committee chosen by the Governors and referred to by the BBC as an "independent panel report" to write a report for publication which was completed in 2006. The committee said that "apart from individual lapses, there was little to suggest deliberate or systematic bias" in the BBC's reporting of the middle east. However, their coverage had been "inconsistent," "not always providing a complete picture" and "misleading". Reflecting concerns from all sides of the conflict, the committee highlighted certain identifiable shortcomings and made four recommendations.

According to an article in The Independent, the report suggested that BBC coverage in fact favoured the Israeli side. Martin Walker, then the editor of United Press International, agreed that the report implied favouritism towards Israel, but said this suggestion "produced mocking guffaws in my newsroom" and went on to list a number of episodes of (in his view) clear pro-Palestinian bias on the part of the BBC.

Former BBC Middle East correspondent Tim Llewellyn wrote in 2004 that the BBC's coverage allowed an Israeli view of the conflict to dominate, as demonstrated by research conducted by the Glasgow Media Group.

In the course of their "Documentary Campaign 2000–2004," Trevor Asserson, Cassie Williams and Lee Kern of BBCWatch published a series of reports The BBC And The Middle East stating in their opinion that "the BBC consistently fails to adhere to its legal obligations to produce impartial and accurate reporting."

Douglas Davis, the London correspondent of The Jerusalem Post, has accused the BBC of being anti-Israel. He wrote that the BBC's coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict was a "portrayal of Israel as a demonic, criminal state and Israelis as brutal oppressors" and resembled a "campaign of vilification" that had de-legitimised the State of Israel. "Anglicans for Israel", the pro-Israel pressure group, have berated the BBC for apparent anti-Israel bias.

The Daily Telegraph has criticised the BBC for its coverage of the Middle East. In 2007, the newspaper wrote, "In its international and domestic news reporting, the corporation has consistently come across as naïve and partial, rather than sensitive and unbiased. Its reporting of Israel and Palestine, in particular, tends to underplay the hate-filled Islamist ideology that inspires Hamas and other factions, while never giving Israel the benefit of the doubt."

In April 2004, Natan Sharansky who was then Israel's minister for diaspora affairs wrote to the BBC accusing its Middle East correspondent, Orla Guerin, as having a "deep-seated bias against Israel" following her description of the Israeli army's handling of the arrest of Hussam Abdu, who was captured with explosives strapped to his chest, as "cynical manipulation of a Palestinian youngster for propaganda purposes."

In March 2006 a report about the Arab-Israeli conflict on the BBC's online service was criticised in a BBC Governors Report as unbalanced and creating a biased impression. The article's account of a 1967 United Nations resolution about the six-day war between Israel and a coalition of Egypt, Jordan and Syria suggested the UN called for Israel's unilateral withdrawal from territories seized during the six-day war, when in fact, it called for a negotiated "land for peace" settlement between Israel and "every state in the area". The committee considered that by selecting only references to Israel, the article had breached editorial standards on both accuracy and impartiality".

On 7 March 2008, news anchor Geeta Guru-Murthy clarified significant errors in the BBC's coverage of the Mercaz HaRav massacre that had been exposed by media monitor Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America. Correspondent Nick Miles had informed viewers that "hours after the attack, Israeli bulldozers destroyed his [the perpetrator's] family home." This was not the case and other broadcasters showed the east Jerusalem home to be intact and the family commemorating their son's actions.

On 14 March 2008, the BBC accepted that in an article on their website of an IDF operation that stated "The Israeli air force said it was targeting a rocket firing team... UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has condemned Israel's attacks on Palestinian civilians, calling them inappropriate and disproportionate", they should have made reference to what [Ban] said about Palestinian rocket attacks as well as to the excessive use of force by Israel. The article was additionally amended to remove the reference of Israeli 'attacks on civilians' as Ban Ki-Moon's attributed comments were made weeks earlier to the UN Security Council, and not in reference to that particular attack, and in fact, he had never used such terminology.

The BBC received intense criticism in January 2009 for its decision not to broadcast a television appeal by aid agencies on behalf of the people of Gaza during the 2008–2009 Israel–Gaza conflict, on the grounds that it could compromise the BBC's journalistic impartiality. A number of protesters asserted that this showed pro-Israeli bias, while some analysts suggested that the BBC's decision in this matter derived from its concern to avoid anti-Israeli bias as analysed in the Balen report. Parties criticising the decision, included Church of England archbishops, British government ministers and even some BBC employees. More than 11,000 complaints were filed in a three-day span. The BBC’s director general, Mark Thompson, explained that the corporation had a duty to cover the Gaza dispute in a “balanced, objective way,“ and was concerned about endorsing something that could "suggest the backing one side”

Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, protested the BBC's decision by cancelling interviews scheduled with the company; ElBaradei claimed the refusal to air the aid appeal "violates the rules of basic human decency which are there to help vulnerable people irrespective of who is right or wrong." The BBC's chief operating officer, Caroline Thomson, affirmed the need to broadcast "without affecting and impinging on the audience's perception of our impartiality" and that in this case, it was a "real issue."

In response to perceived falsehoods and distortions in a BBC One’s Panorama documentary entitled ‘A Walk in the Park', transmitted in January 2010, British journalist Melanie Phillips penned an open letter in news magazine The Spectator to the Secretary of State for Culture, Jeremy Hunt, accusing the BBC of "flagrantly biased reporting of Israel" and urged the BBC to confront the "prejudice and inertia which are combining to turn its reporting on Israel into crude pro-Arab propaganda, and thus risk destroying the integrity of an institution."

In March 2011, Member of Parliament Louise Bagshawe criticised the inaccuracies and omissions in BBC's coverage of the Itamar massacre and questioned the BBC's decision not to broadcast this incident on television and barely on radio, and its apparent bias against Israel. In his July 2012 testimony to the Parliament, the outgoing Director-General of the BBC Mark Thompson admitted that BBC "got it wrong.”

A BBC Editorial Standards Findings issued in July 2011 found that a broadcast on Today on 27 September 2010 that stated "“At midnight last night, the moratorium on Israelis building new settlements in the West Bank came to an end. It had lasted for ten months", had breached the Accuracy guideline in respect of the requirement to present output “in clear, precise language”, as in fact the moratorium on building new settlements had been in existence since the early 1990s and remained in place.

In December 2011, the BBC caused further controversy after censoring the word 'Palestine' from a song played on BBC Radio 1Xtra.

More controversy was caused in April 2012 when the BBC broadcast news of 2,500 Palestinian prisoners who were on hunger strike, with very little overall coverage. This resulted in two protests outside the BBC buildings in Glasgow and in London.

During the 2012 Olympics, on their country profiles pages, the BBC listed "East Jerusalem" as the capital of Palestine, and did not list a capital at all for Israel. After public outrage and a letter from Israeli government spokesperson Mark Regev, the BBC listed a “Seat of Government” for Israel in Jerusalem, while adding that most foreign embassies “are in Tel Aviv.” It made a parallel change to the listing for “Palestine”, listing “East Jerusalem” as the “Intended seat of government.”

In a response to a reader's criticism on the issue, the BBC replied that the complaints that prompted the changes were “generated by online lobby activity." The BBC was also noted for having no coverage whatsoever about the campaign for the IOC to commemorate the 11 slain Israeli athletes from the Munich massacre in the 1972 Summer Olympics, which was met with repeated refusal by IOC President Jacques Rogge, despite the issue receiving much press by other major news networks.

Iraq and the Hutton Inquiry

The BBC was criticised for its coverage of the events before the invasion of Iraq, in 2003. The controversy over what it described as the "sexing up" of the case for war in Iraq by the government, led to the BBC being heavily criticised by the Hutton Inquiry, although this finding was much disputed by the British press, who branded it as a government whitewash.

The BBC's chairman and director general both resigned following the inquiry, and its vice-chairman Lord Ryder made a public apology to the government – which the Liberal Democrat Norman Baker MP described as "of such capitulation that I wanted to throw up when I heard it".

2006 Lebanon War

During the 2006 Lebanon War, Israeli diplomatic officials boycotted BBC news programmes, refused interviews, and excluded BBC reporters from briefings because Israeli officials believed the BBC's reporting was biased, stating "the reports we see give the impression that the BBC is working on behalf of Hizbullah instead of doing fair journalism." Francesca Unsworth, head of BBC News gathering, defended the coverage in an article for Jewish News.com.

The Balen Report

Main article: The Balen Report

The BBC is seeking to overturn a ruling by the Information Tribunal rejecting the BBC's refusal to release the Balen report to a member of the public under the Freedom of Information Act on the grounds that it was held for the purposes of journalism. The report examines BBC radio and television broadcasts covering the Arab-Israeli conflict and was compiled in 2004 by Malcolm Balen, a senior editorial adviser.

Critics of the BBC claimed that the Balen Report includes evidence of bias against Israel in news programming. For examples, on 10 October 2006, The Daily Telegraph claimed that "The BBC has spent thousands of pounds of licence payers' money trying to block the release of a report which is believed to be highly critical of its Middle East coverage. The corporation is mounting a landmark High Court action to prevent the release of The Balen Report under the Freedom of Information Act, despite the fact that BBC reporters often use the Act to pursue their journalism. The action will increase suspicions that the report, which is believed to run to 20,000 words, includes evidence of anti-Israeli bias in news programming."

It has been alleged that the corporation paid £200,000 for this legal action. The Daily Mail called the BBC's blocking a Freedom of Information Act request "shameful hypocrisy", in light of the corporation's previous extensive use of Freedom of Information Act requests in its journalism.

On 27 April 2007 the High Court rejected Mr Steven Sugar's challenge to the Information Commissioner's decision. However, on 11 February 2009 the House of Lords (the UK's highest court) reinstated the Information Tribunal's decision to allow Sugar's appeal against the Information Commissioner's decision.

The BBC's press release following the High Court judgment included the following statement:

"The BBC's action in this case had nothing to do with the fact that the Balen report was about the Middle East – the same approach would have been taken whatever area of news output was covered."

Sugar was reported after his success in the House of Lords as saying:

"It is sad that the BBC felt it necessary to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money fighting for three years to try to load the system against those requesting information from it. I am very pleased that the House of Lords has ruled that such obvious unfairness is not the result of the Act."

Barbara Plett's tears for Yasser Arafat

During the BBC programme From Our Own Correspondent broadcast on 30 October 2004, Plett described herself crying when she saw a frail Yasser Arafat being evacuated to France for medical treatment. This led to "hundreds of complaints" to the BBC, and suggestions that the BBC was biased. Andrew Dismore, the MP for Hendon, accused Ms Plett of "sloppy journalism", and commented that "this shows the inherent bias of the BBC against Israel." In response to Ms Plett's report, Lord Janner, the Labour peer, lamented, "We should shed tears for those who suffer... because of Arafat's intifada... this sort of coverage is exactly what we have come to expect from the BBC."

BBC News defended Plett in a statement saying that her reporting had met the high standards of "fairness, accuracy and balance" expected of a BBC correspondent. Initially, a complaint of bias against Plett was rejected by the BBC's head of editorial complaints. However, almost a year later, on 25 November 2005, the programme complaints committee of the BBC governors partially upheld the complaints, ruling that Plett’s comments “breached the requirements of due impartiality”. Despite initially issuing a statement in support of Plett, the BBC director of news Helen Boaden later apologised for what she described as "an editorial misjudgment". The governors praised Boaden's speedy response and reviewed the BBC's stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Jeremy Bowen

In April 2009, the Editorial Standards Committee of the BBC Trust published a report on three complaints brought against two news items involving Jeremy Bowen, the Middle East Editor for BBC News. The complaints included 24 allegations of inaccuracy or impartiality of which three were fully or partially upheld. The BBC Trust's editorial standards committee found that Bowen's radio piece "had stated his professional view without qualification or explanation, and that the lack of precision in his language had rendered the statement inaccurate". They opined that the online article should have explained that the existence of alternate views and breached the rules of impartiality. However, the report did not accuse Bowen of bias. The website article was amended and Bowen did not face any disciplinary measures.

Pro-Muslim bias

Hindu and Sikh leaders in the United Kingdom have accused the BBC of pandering to Britain's Muslim community by making a disproportionate number of programmes on Islam at the expense of covering other Asian religions.

In a letter sent in July to the Network of Sikh Organizations (NSO), the head of the BBC's Religion and Ethics, Michael Wakelin, denied any biases on their part. A spokesman for the BBC said the broadcaster was committed to representing all of Britain's faiths and communities.

However, a number of MPs, including Rob Marris and Keith Vaz, called on the BBC to do more to represent Britain's minority faiths. "I am disappointed," said Mr Vaz. "It is only right that as licence fee payers all faiths are represented in a way that mirrors their make-up in society. I hope that the BBC addresses the problem in its next year of programming."

Anti-Muslim bias

Muslim employees of the BBC in the United Kingdom have accused the BBC of operating an anti-Muslim policy by sidelining or sacking a disproportionate number of Muslims at its digital radio station Asian Network. They also asked that the station play more music from Pakistan and Bangladesh in addition to the Bollywood and bhangra music that is more popular with the Hindu and Sikh communities.

A survey by Consumer PI found British Muslims perceive BBC TV news (as well as TV news from Sky and ITV) to be biased against their religion. Shakir Ahmed, director of Passion Islam Media said this perception may well fuel radicalism.

Arab Spring

The overly positive coverage by BBC of the Arab Spring was criticised both from within and outside of the corporation. In June 2012, the head of news Helen Boaden admitted that the coverage was "over-excited". She attributed this to reporters embedded with the rebels, who produced reports which are "too emotive" and "veering into opinion".

Unrest in Bahrain

In June 2012, the BBC admitted making "major errors" in its coverage of the unrest. In an 89-page report, 9 pages were devoted to the BBC's coverage of Bahrain and included admissions that the BBC had "underplayed the sectarian aspect of the conflict" and "not adequately convey the viewpoint of supporters of the monarchy" by "[failing] to mention attempts by Crown Prince His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa to establish dialogue with the opposition". The report added that "the government appears to have made a good-faith effort to de-escalate the crisis" in particular during a period when the BBC's coverage of the unrest dropped substantially and that many people had complained that their coverage was "utterly one-sided".

Indophobia

In 2008, the BBC was criticised by some for referring to the men who carried out the November 2008 Mumbai attacks as "gunmen" rather than "terrorists". This follows a steady stream of complaints from India that the BBC has an Indophobic bias that stems from a culturally ingrained racism against Indians arising from the British Raj. Rediff reporter Arindam Banerji has chronicled what he argues are numerous cases of Indophobic bias from the BBC regarding reportage, selection bias, misrepresentation, and fabrications.

In protest against the use of the word "gunmen" by the BBC, journalist Mobashar Jawed "M.J." Akbar refused to take part in an interview following the Mumbai terror attacks, and criticised the BBC's reportage of the incident. British parliamentarian Stephen Pound has supported these claims, referring to the BBC's whitewashing of the terror attacks as "the worst sort of mealy mouthed posturing. It is desperation to avoid causing offence which ultimately causes more offence to everyone."

Writing for The Hindu Business Line, reporter Premen Addy criticises the BBC's reportage on South Asia as consistently anti-India and pro-Islamist, and that they underreport India's economic and social achievements, as well as political and diplomatic efforts, and disproportionately highlight and exaggerate problems in the country. In addition, Addy alludes to discrimination against Indian anchors and reporters in favour of Pakistani and Bangladeshi ones who are hostile to India.

Writing for the 2008 edition of the peer-reviewed Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Alasdair Pinkerton analyses the coverage of India by the BBC since India's independence from British rule in 1947 until 2008. Pinkerton observes a tumultuous history involving allegations of anti-India bias in the BBC's reportage, particularly during the cold war, and concludes that the BBC's coverage of South Asian geopolitics and economics shows a pervasive and hostile anti-India bias due to the BBC's alleged imperialist and neo-colonialist stance.

Anti-Hindu bias

Hindu groups in the United Kingdom have accused the BBC of anti-Hindu bigotry and whitewashing Islamist hate groups that demonise the British Indian minority

In 2005, the Vivekananda Centre London and the Hindu Council(UK) reported an institutional anti Hindu bias and stated that "Anything that may show Hinduism in a poor light is immediately picked up by the BBC programme makers, while anything that may show Hinduism in a glorious light remains ignored by the BBC."

In March 2012, the BBC referred to the Hindu festival of Holi as "filthy festival". The Webster new world dictionary defines "filthy" as "full of filth, disgustingly foul; grossly obscene; morally vicious or corrupt". The BBC has since apologised for the offence caused.

Anti-Sikh racism

In 2009, the BBC earned the Sikh ire for "being insensitive towards Sikhs and encouraging a Muslim presenter to mock Sikhism." BBC rejected the charge, but deleted the show from their website.

Anti-American bias

In October 2006, Chief Radio Correspondent for BBC News since 2001 and Washington correspondent Justin Webb said that the BBC is so biased against America that deputy director general Mark Byford had secretly agreed to help him to "correct" it in his reports, and that the BBC treated America with scorn and derision and gave it "no moral weight".

In April 2007, Webb presented a three part series for BBC Radio 4 called Death To America: Anti Americanism Examined in which he challenged a common perception of the United States as an international bully and a modern day imperial power.

American news commentator Bill O'Reilly has repeatedly sought to draw attention to what he calls the BBCs "inherent liberal culture."

John Redwood's deregulation proposals

The BBC has been criticised for the way it covered Conservative MP John Redwood's policy group's deregulation proposals. Prominent political blogger Iain Dale criticised the organisation for leading news reports with the Labour Party's response to the proposals, rather than the proposals themselves, and claimed the BBC was "doing Labour's dirty work". The BBC denied the charge.

British newspaper The Sun also alleged the BBC reports showed bias, criticising the organisation for including embarrassing footage of John Redwood badly singing the Welsh national anthem from the early 1990s. The paper argued that the coverage "was a mockery of impartial journalism" and "could have been scripted by Labour ministers". The BBC later apologised, but denied showing bias.

Secret Agent documentary

On Thursday 15 July 2004 the BBC broadcast a documentary on the far right British National Party where undercover reporter Jason Gwynne infiltrated the BNP by posing as a football hooligan. The programme resulted in Mark Collett and Nick Griffin, the leader of the party, being charged for inciting racial hatred in April 2005, for statements which included Griffin describing Islam as a "wicked, vicious faith," Collett describing asylum seekers as "a little bit like cockroaches" and saying "let's show these ethnics the door in 2004." Griffin and Collett were found not guilty on some charges at the first trial in January 2006, but the jury failed to reach a verdict on the others, so a retrial was ordered.

At the retrial held in November 2006 all of the defendants were found not guilty on the basis that the law at the time did not consider those who follow Islam or Christianity to be a protected group with respect to racial defamation laws. Shortly after this case, British law was amended to outlaw incitement to hatred against a religious group (see Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006).

The BNP believe this was an attempt to "Discredit the British National Party as a party of opposition to the Labour government."

After the second trial, Nick Griffin described the BBC as a "Politically correct, politically biased organisation which has wasted licence-fee payers' money to bring two people in a legal, democratic, peaceful party to court over speaking nothing more than the truth."

Jerry Springer: The Opera

In January 2005, the BBC aired Jerry Springer: The Opera, ultimately resulting in around 55,000 complaints to the BBC from those upset at the opera's alleged blasphemies against the Christian religion. In advance of the broadcast, which the BBC had warned "contains language and content which won't be to some tastes" mediawatch-uk's director John Beyer wrote to the Director General urging the BBC to drop the programme, saying "Licence fee payers do not expect the BBC to be pushing back boundaries of taste and decency in this way." The BBC issued a statement saying: "As a public service broadcaster, it is the BBC's role to broadcast a range of programmes that will appeal to all audiences – with very differing tastes and interests – present in the UK today."

Before the broadcast, some 150 people bearing placards protested outside the BBC Television Centre in Shepherd's Bush. On the Monday following the broadcast, which was watched by some two million viewers, The Times announced that BBC executives had received death threats after their addresses and telephone numbers were posted on the Christian Voice website. The Corporation had received some 35,000 complaints before the broadcast, but reported only 350 calls following the broadcast, which were split between those praising the production and those complaining about it.

One Christian group attempted to bring private criminal prosecutions for blasphemy against the BBC, and another demanded a judicial review of the decision.

In March 2005, the BBC's Board of Governors convened and considered the complaints, which they rejected by a majority of 4 to 1. The subsequent refusal of the BBC to reproduce the actual Muhammad cartoons in its coverage of the controversy concerning them convinced many that the BBC follows an unstated policy of freely broadcasting defamation of Christianity which it would not allow in the case of any other religion.

Climate change

The BBC has been criticised for hypocrisy over its high carbon footprint, in view of the amount of coverage it gives to the topic of climate change. Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman argues that the Corporation's correspondents "travel the globe to tell the audience of the dangers of climate change while leaving a vapour trail which will make the problem even worse". Paxman further argues that the 'BBC's coverage of the issue abandoned the pretence of impartiality long ago'.

At the 2007 Edinburgh International Television Festival, Peter Horrocks (Head of TV News) and Peter Barron (Editor, Newsnight), said that the BBC should not campaign on the issue of climate change. They criticised proposed plans for a BBC Comic Relief style day of programmes around climate change. Horrocks was quoted as saying: "I absolutely don't think we should do that because it's not impartial. It's not our job to lead people and proselytise about it."

Peter Barron was quoted as adding: "It is absolutely not the BBC's job to save the planet. I think there are a lot of people who think that, but it must be stopped."

Peter Horrocks later outlined the BBC's position on the BBC Editors Blog ("No Line").

The plans for a day of programmes about environmental issues were abandoned in September 2007. A BBC spokesperson said this was "absolutely not" because of concerns about impartiality.

In January 2011, broadcast journalist Peter Sissons told the Daily Mail that "the BBC became a propaganda machine for climate change zealots...and I was treated as a lunatic for daring to dissent".

In July 2011 a BBC Trust review cited findings of an assessment by Professor Steve Jones of University College London. Jones found there was an at times “over-rigid” application of the Editorial Guidelines on impartiality in relation to science coverage, which failed to take into account what he regarded as the “non-contentious” nature of some stories and the need to avoid giving “undue attention to marginal opinion”. Professor Jones gave reporting of the safety of the MMR vaccine and more recent coverage of claims about the safety of GM crops and the existence of man made climate change as examples of his point.

Anti-Catholic bias

Prominent Catholic leaders have criticised the BBC for having an anti Catholic bias and showing hostility towards the Catholic church.

The BBC has also been criticised for recycling old news and for "insensitivity" and bad timing when it decided to broadcast programmes called "Kenyon Confronts" and "Sex and the Holy City" around the same time as Pope John Paul II's 25^th anniversary and the beatification of Mother Teresa.

In 2003, the BBC had planned a ten part cartoon series which "featured an infantile Pope ... bouncing around the Vatican on a pogostick". The plans were shelved after it evoked intense outrage and criticism from Catholics.

The BBC has rejected the "Anti Catholic" charge.

Documentary on Euro 2012

Eleven days before the tournament took place, the BBC current affairs programme Panorama, entitled Euro 2012: Stadiums of Hate, included recent footage of supporters chanting various racist slogans and displays of white power symbols and banners in Poland, and Nazi salutes and the beating of South Asians in Ukraine. The documentary was first commented widely in the British press, but then accused of being one-sided, biased and unethical. Critics included the British media; anti-racism campaigners, and black and Jewish community leaders in Poland; Polish and Ukrainian politicians and journalists; England fans visiting the host nations and footballers (Gary Lineker, Roy Hodgson and others). Jonathan Ornstein, the leader of Jewish community in Kraków, a Jewish source used in the documentary said: "I am furious at the way the BBC has exploited me as a source. The organization used me and others to manipulate the serious subject of anti-Semitism for its own sensationalist agenda... the BBC knowingly cheated its own audience - the British people - by concocting a false horror story about Poland. In doing so, the BBC has spread fear, ignorance, prejudice and hatred. I am profoundly disturbed by this unethical form of journalism."

A reporter from Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland's biggest left-wing newspaper, questioned Panorama's practices and said: "I am becoming more and more surprised with what the BBC says. So far it has denied two situations I witnessed. I would not be surprised if the BBC prepared a statement saying that the Panorama crew has never been to Poland."

An anti-racism campaigner Jacek Purski said: "The material prepared by the BBC is one-sided. It does not show the whole story of Polish preparations for the Euros. It does not show the Championship ran a lot of activities aimed at combating racism in the "Respect Diversity" campaign. For us the Euro is not only about matches. The event has become an opportunity to fight effectively against racism and promote multiculturalism. There is no country in Europe free from racism. These are the facts."

The Daily Mail reported that the Football Association intended to write a letter of complaint to the BBC.

The nations fined by UEFA for racism were not the hosts but the visitors from Spain, Croatia, Russia and Germany.

Sexual abuse of children

Main articles: Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal and North Wales child abuse scandal

In the weeks after the ITV1 documentary Exposure: The Other Side of Jimmy Savile was broadcast on 3 October 2012, the BBC faced questions and criticism over allegations that it had failed to act on rumours about sexual assaults, especially on young girls, by presenter Jimmy Savile, some of which had occurred on BBC premises after the recording of programmes including Top of the Pops and Jim'll Fix It. Allegations were also made that a Newsnight investigation into Savile in December 2011 was dropped because it conflicted with tribute programmes prepared after Savile's death.

By 11 October 2012 allegations of abuse by Savile had been made to 13 British police forces, and on 19 October Scotland Yard launched a formal criminal investigation into historic allegations of child sex abuse by Savile and others over four decades. The police reported on 25 October 2012 that the number of possible victims was 300.

It was claimed that Douglas Muggeridge, the controller of Radio 1 in the early 1970s, was aware of allegations against Savile, and had asked for a report on them in 1973. The BBC stated that no evidence of any allegations of misconduct, or of actual misconduct by Savile, had been found in its files and later denied that there had been a cover-up of Savile's activities. However, there were claims by some, including DJ Liz Kershaw, that during the 1980s there was a culture within the BBC which tolerated sexual harassment.

The BBC was criticised in Parliament for its handling of the affair, with Harriet Harman stating that the allegations "cast a stain" on the corporation. The Culture Secretary, Maria Miller, said that she was satisfied that the BBC was taking the allegations very seriously, and dismissed calls for an independent inquiry. Labour leader Ed Miliband said that an independent inquiry was the only way to ensure justice for those involved. George Entwistle offered to appear before the Parliamentary Culture, Media and Sport Committee to explain the BBC's position and actions.

On 16 October the BBC appointed the heads of two separate inquiries into events surrounding Savile. Former High Court judge Dame Janet Smith, who led the inquiry into serial killer Harold Shipman, will review the culture and practices of the BBC during the time Savile worked there, while Nick Pollard, a former Sky News executive, will look at why a Newsnight investigation into Savile's activities was dropped shortly before transmission.

A Panorama investigation was broadcast on 22 October 2012. The Director-General of the BBC, George Entwistle, declined to be interviewed, citing legal advice that BBC senior management should co-operate only with the police, the BBC's reviews and Parliament. On the same day the BBC announced that Newsnight editor Peter Rippon would "step aside" from his position with immediate effect. On 23 October, Entwistle appeared before the Parliamentary Culture, Media and Sport Committee, at which he faced hostile questioning and stated that it had been a "catastrophic mistake" to cancel the Newsnight broadcast.

In the context of the Savile scandal, it was noted that a book written in 1999 by journalist John Simpson, Strange Places, Questionable People, had referred to an "Uncle Dick" at the BBC who had sexually assaulted children, and who appeared to fit the profile of BBC announcer Derek McCulloch. Author Andrew O'Hagan wrote that there had long been rumours about McCulloch's activities, and those of his colleague Lionel Gamlin, while working at the BBC in the 1940s and 1950s. The BBC said that they would "look into these allegations as part of the Jimmy Savile review." McCulloch's family described the allegations as "complete rubbish".

Newsnight broadcast, on 2 November 2012, a report making allegations against, but not naming, a "prominent Thatcher era Conservative politician" in relation to the North Wales child abuse scandal. However, this story collapsed after The Guardian reported on 8 November a case of mistaken identity, and the next day the victim retracted the allegation. An apology was included in Newsnight on 9 November, and all ongoing Newsnight investigations were suspended. George Entwistle stated that he was unaware of the content of the report before it was broadcast and stated that Newsnight staff involved in the broadcast could be disciplined. However, Entwistle himself resigned on 10 November, after facing further criticism in the media. The Director of BBC Scotland, Ken MacQuarrie, investigated the circumstances around the Newsnight programme. His findings were published on 12 November, and concluded that there had been "a lack of clarity around the senior editorial chain of command" and that "some of the basic journalistic checks were not completed."

National Viewers' and Listeners' Association

The National Viewers' and Listeners' Association was formed in 1965 by Mary Whitehouse to "clean up" the BBC, claiming that it "was responsible for the moral collapse in the country".

'London-centrism'

On 1 November 2007 it was reported that Sir Michael Lyons, chairman of the BBC Trust, criticised the BBC as too London-centric, paying less attention to news stories outside of the capital.

'Overstaffing'

The BBC has been criticised for 'overstaffing' news, sporting, and cultural events and in doing so both wasting licence fee money, and using their dominant position to control the coverage of events.

A 2010 House of Commons Public Accounts Committee report criticised the number of staff that the BBC had sent to sporting events such as the Beijing Olympics and the Euro 2008 football championships. In June 2011 the Corporation sent 263 staff to cover the Glastonbury Festival. The next month they sent 250 staff members to cover an event marking one year until the start of the London 2012 Olympics, ten times the numbers used by other broadcasters.

On 19 October 2011 the Liberal Democrats' culture spokesman Don Foster criticised the large number of BBC staff members who attended the eviction of travellers and their supporters from the illegal section of the Dale Farm site. Foster stated that it was 'ludicrous over staffing and hardly good way to get public sympathy for the 20 per cent budget cuts facing the BBC'. The BBC responded that they only had 20 staff members on site.

Funding

Main article: Television licensing in the United Kingdom

The fact that the BBC's domestic services are funded by television licence fees is criticised by its competitors and others on a number of grounds.

The recent rise of multi-channel digital television has led to criticism that the licence fee is unjustifiable on the basis that minority interest programmes can now be transmitted on specialist commercial channels and that the licence fee is funding a number of digital-only channels which many licence holders cannot watch (for example BBC Three and BBC Four).

BBC Russia

On 17 August 2007 it was reported that FM broadcast of the BBC's Russian language service in Russia would be dropped, leaving only medium and short wave broadcasts in Russia. Financial organisation Finam, which owns the FM radio service now dropping the BBC Russia broadcasts, through its spokesman Igor Ermachenkov, said that "Any media which is government-financed is propaganda – it's a fact, it's not negative". A spokesman, for the BBC responded: "Although the BBC is funded by the UK government... a fundamental principle of its constitution and its regulatory regime is that it is editorially independent of the UK government." Reports put the development in the context of criticism of the Russian government for curbing media freedom and strained UK-Russian relations. Reporters Without Borders condemned the move as censorship.

Wales and Scotland coverage controversy

In August 2007, Adam Price, the Plaid Cymru MP, highlighted what he perceived as a lack of a Welsh focus on BBC news broadcasts. Price threatened to withhold future television licence fees in response to a lack of thorough news coverage of Wales, echoing a BBC Audience Council for Wales July report citing public frustration over how the Welsh Assembly is characterised in national media.

Plaid AM Bethan Jenkins agreed with Price and called for responsibility for broadcasting to be devolved to the Welsh Assembly, voicing similar calls from Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond. Criticism of the BBC's news coverage for Wales and Scotland since devolution prompted debate of possibly providing evening news broadcasts with specific focus for both countries.

Scotland referendum

The National Union of Journalists(NUJ) has criticized BBC for it's poor coverage of Scotland referendum. BBC reportedly "downplayed the costs of referendum coverage, claiming it was a 'one off'".

European Union coverage

In 2005, two independent reports deemed the BBC's coverage of European Union to be rather inadequate and one of the reports noted a "cultural and unintentional bias".

'Off payroll' tax arrangements

In October 2012 a Public Accounts Committee (United Kingdom) report found that the BBC had 25,000 "off payroll" contracts – 13,000 for people who were on air. These contracts enable people to make their own arrangements to pay tax and national insurance, which could allow them to contribute less than employees on pay-as-you-earn tax (PAYE). In response the BBC said many of these were short-term contracts, but it was carrying out a detailed review of tax arrangements.

See also

• BBC controversies

External links

• BBC homepage